


Thaw

by Sanj



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-07-19
Updated: 2001-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 15:52:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanj/pseuds/Sanj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This one actually takes place within the bonds of comics canon, right after The Epic Fight in "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?"</p>
    </blockquote>





	Thaw

**Author's Note:**

> This one actually takes place within the bonds of comics canon, right after The Epic Fight in "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?"

Dick slid in through her window; Barbara wasn't surprised -- not really. She'd expected him to walk it off and seek solace somewhere.   
  
She just hadn't entirely been sure it would be  _here_.   
  
"You okay?" She asked, though he manifestly wasn't. Beyond the fact of the livid bruise on his jaw, there was a light gone from his eyes -- a chilling absence Babs had never seen, not even at his worst.   
  
"We need to talk."   
  
Ah, bliss. Those four little words that mean so much. "So talk." She moused a couple of routines in place to babysit the Gotham scanner frequencies. If Bruce -- well,  _Batman_  -- had set himself loose upon the city, it would be apparent in the next few hours.   
  
Dick took a while, fidgeting with a printer cable like it was decel line. "I treated you like dirt," he said finally. "With the Joker. You deserved more respect than that."   
  
"You weren't wrong, Dick," she started, but now Dick was squatting in front of her, finding her hands, looking her in the eye. How long since he'd done that? Weeks?   
  
"I  _was_  wrong. I was wrong about myself; I agreed with everything you said. I just couldn't face up to it. So I lectured you about good and evil instead, and you had every right to shut me down."   
  
And it had stung, and perhaps today there was no point in lying about it. "Yeah," she said, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "You were a jerk."   
  
"I really love you," Dick said, and if he looked away and down when he said it, he could at least say the words, which was tougher than Barbara knew how to be. "I love you and sometimes I forget that we shouldn't agree all the time. Just because we're on the same side."   
  
Ah. "You're angry that I can't defend Bruce now that he needs it."   
  
"No," Dick said. "I'm angry that we're all trying to rely on logic and evidence when we emotionally know it's impossible for him to take a life."   
  
"Not impossible," Barbara said, hating herself. "Extremely unlikely."   
  
Dick closed his eyes and sighed. "I don't agree with you. I think you're wrong."   
  
"I hope I am," Barbara reached for his chin, made him look at her. "I mean that, Dick. If I'm relying on logic, it's because that's what I have to do, just like you have to defend him when he's pretty clearly --"   
  
"Batshit?" Dick did still have his sense of humor -- but if he'd reverted to puns it was a near thing.   
  
She rolled her eyes a little. "Yeah."   
  
Dick got up again, walked around the room -- caged bird, even to the way he swung his arms like he was spoiling to fight or fly. "Here's what I was thinking." His voice sounded strange, like he might even be close to tears. "We disagree, we fight all the time, we're on the rocks -- and I can't break up with you now."   
  
A cold feeling in her stomach, unbidden. "You were thinking about it?"   
  
"I've been having a relationship with your cold shoulder for a while."   
  
 _Never stopped you with him,_  Barbara didn't say. "We're both pretty stubborn," she managed, and Dick actually turned and -- maybe -- smiled.   
  
"Compared to what?" he said -- an old joke. He came back to her again, hands hovering near her like he wasn't certain he should touch until she grabbed one arm and yanked him down again to eye level.   
  
She let her fingers touch his bruised jaw. "Did he break it?" she asked, tracing the elegant bones for a break or chip.   
  
Shuttered eyes. "Not quite."   
  
 _I can't break up with you_ , he'd said, and Barbara got it -- she understood perfectly well what he'd lost tonight. What they'd all lost. "I can't ... we're not through," she said. "We've got, well, a mess, is what we've got. Things being what they are right now --" she glanced toward the monitors. Nothing yet.   
  
"Bruce has snapped," Dick said, his eyes still looking away. "Let's not pretend this is anything else."   
  
Pretend.... "You're still hoping he's got a plan. That this all happened for some kind of reason." How could Bruce's reasoning ever have ended in Vesper Fairchild's murder?   
  
"I hoped until tonight," Dick said. "Now? If he has an agenda, I'm not meant to see it -- he made that pretty clear. So I have to play this like he doesn't."   
  
"But you still think he does." She wondered if that was more impressive faith or startling stupidity.   
  
"He's all I've got." Dick's voice sounded small. Barbara was reminded, viscerally, of saying the same thing to Bruce less than a year ago, in this same room. She'd been talking about her father.   
  
Dick, in his own, strange way, was talking about his. "You're wrong," she said, as Bruce had said to her. "You've got me."   
  
He was finally able to meet her gaze. "We're a mess. You said so yourself."   
  
Barbara leaned toward him, pressed a kiss to the good side of his face. "I also said we're stubborn," she said. "That counts for a lot." 


End file.
